Morning Glory
by Blueberry Absinth
Summary: Sometimes you just need to hear a sadder story to appreciate your own life more. A story in the story, a myth in the myths, everything's just a circle... For the LP contest


_**This is a submission to the Legends of the Past contest. If you wish to participate, see rukaru-romance. passion's profile**_

**Finally finished it. Phew! :D This is my fic for the above-mentioned contest (THE FIRST EVER!!!!!) and if you did like it, I'd really appreciate it if you leave a review and later vote for me (if you liked it, of course :D) **

**Discl.: Gakuen Alice is owned by the bestest manga-ka, whose name I'm afraid to write because of a curse called 'spelling', and Greek mythology belongs to whoever owns it :D**

**Not beta-ed. Just the usual looking for mistakes with half an eye from me :D**

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Morning Glory

Or the Sister of Tragedy

Anna was happy. Very happy. Too happy. Happy so much that she would just smile and smile and smile until it became too much and everything around her exploded. The knowledge that she was going to travel (travel!!), something so rare for an Alice student, that she was going to the place where some of the best writers of tragedy had been born and had lived and written their masterpieces, the fact that she was going with Kaname, a really good friend and a crush of hers, every single little unimportant but actually very important detail of the trip, everything, everything had been just perfect, it'd been just there to create a new smile. Much like Mikan.

No wonder when they'd given her the details of the trip, she'd felt like jumping up and down and hugging everyone in view. In the beginning, one would've thought Greece wasn't that interesting because its most visited touristic places were at least a few centuries old, but in Anna's opinion the age just added to the awesomeness meter.

The best places in the world were where you could drink tea and eat home-made cookies with a nymph just coming back from an elf meeting, her voice coarse from singing, her legs sore from dancing. The best places were where legends walked on the earth. And Greece held a special air that just screamed 'Lovely!!!'.

Her whole class and some of the middle and high school students, the best of the best, both behavior-ishly and grade-ishly, had been to travel in different places, always in pairs. Be it by some coincidence or the meddling of the true power of Cupid (or Eros), Natsume and Mikan had been assigned to Paris, Ruka and Hotaru - to London, Sumire and Koko had received tickets for somewhere in America and so on. And the real strange thing had been that all formal and not so formal couples were assigned together. It was a fun thought. But how had they known she was crushing on Kaname Sono-senpai?

Just the idea of travelling with him had had her giggling and blushing and mentally patting herself on the back for having such a good luck. But it was a strange luck to be partners with your crush.

So she'd just decided to forget about the incredibility of the situation and just be happy.

The plane flight had been really boring, countless hours spent sitting in an uncomfy chair, away from her companion. If the Academy was going to let them travel around the Earth, it should've at least booked a private plane, not a normal plane, _away from your partner._ She wasn't used to sitting so long. But she'd had to, even though that'd meant sitting next to two boys, who'd been uninteresting.

But now the feeling of that stupid flight was forgotten. For finally they were in Greece – in the house, the two were going to live for a few days, _alone_. The building alone wasn't that big, but it was cute -with its lack of a pointy roof, the white walls, the blue-painted doors and the pink flowers, everything was surreal. The rooms were as equally pretty as the outside and fortunately there were two bedrooms.

The trip had exhausted Kaname-senpai and he'd gone to rest, gentlemanly choosing the smaller bedroom, flashing her a small flirty smile, that'd sent her giggling in her inner self. Surprisingly, she'd resisted going all fangirl on the outside and was now patting herself on the back for doing that, while exploring the rooms and the yard.

That boy, despite not having a Pheromone Alice, had as much influence on girls as, let's say, Yuri-senpai. Just remembering the student with a Girls Only Pheromone, sent her giggling and smiling and blushing this time.

Feeling too hot in the normal Mediterranean afternoon, even inside, Anna decided to go to the ocean. Water had to be cooler, right? Congratulating herself for putting on a swimsuit even before they departed from Japan, she went outside and took off running to the direction where the sea was showing its sapphire-blue waves, where the white sea gulls were crying out, talking to each other in one beautiful game.

Everything on this island (whose name always slipped her mind) was pretty – the very air held a beautiful fragrance, a mix of ocean water, greenery and ancient lands. Cypresses were giving out dark shadows, too dark, so contrasting to the sun-kissed soil, grasses were growing out up to the knee and even more, olives looked as if they were blessed by Athena just now. There was a strange sound resounding from everywhere, which could only be identified as the chirping of a cicada, those bugs Gerald Durrell loved searching for. Everything looked like it had just emerged from a peaceful dream. It looked as if a nymph would come out dancing, as if a tree dryad would lift her hand which is a branch, as if a mermaid would just come out of the water, sit on a rock and start combing her hair.

Finally, Anna came out to the seashore. The sand was as warm and yellow as the sun, having a nice feel between her toes. Swiftly taking off her over-sized T-shirt, standing up in just a swimsuit one-piece, she advanced to the playing water.

Not so surprisingly, the water wasn't really cold, but nor was it boiling hot. Cool. Nice. Perfect for swimming.

She wasn't very good at swimming, but, guess, she could try; the water wasn't very deep and slowly. The girl started swimming, the way frogs swam – at least that style wasn't that hard to do.

The ocean she was swimming in, whatever its name was, was perfect for learning how to swim. As said before, the water was warm; there weren't any strange beings that were creating their little civilization, whole with money and clothes and anything, the tides weren't powerful at all, or were it to be said in a different, more poetic way, the breath of the ocean was shallow. The only obstacle was the rocky seabed and the rocks sticking out of the water. It hurt when one bumped into a rock, while swimming with the head under water. It could draw even out blood.

But soon rocks became more of a play toy. After swimming for quite some time, Anna decided that she could finally try out to reach somewhere, somewhere farther from her usual few strokes. She chose a faraway rock, one of the biggest, smoothest and closest and tried swimming her way there. At first it seemed easy but then her limbs started to get tired. She tried harder and soon reached her goal.

She put her hands on the stone to catch the breath she'd been holding. It had been more tiring than expected, plus the deeper the water was, the more powerful the tides were. And here it was quite deep – the girl had to hold one part of the rock to keep herself above the water. And since she was still tired, decided to examine her safe holder.

It was dark gray, but with a lot of rainbow-colored speckles and spots. The surface was smooth, but hard: it looked as if it had made holes in a lot of ships. There was one bump which looked as if had been hit by a hammer and a big chunk had fallen off; there was a place which looked as if it had been dyed by a painter: the colors were too lovely for their own good. And there was-

Anna let out a little 'wow', then, awed by its strangeness, let out a finger and traced the strange white lines, written in a perfect straight row. The strange letters (they looked like some kind of ancient letters, after all) looked as if they were carved into the stone, quite elegantly in fact. The rough edges usually found on carvings just… weren't there.

The unknown signs went in the two directions, apparently obscuring the whole rock. She followed the line to the left until it touched something soft and warmer than the rock. It was a ring. Attached to a pale hand. Too cool to be human but still alive.

The reaction was obvious: Anna shrieked to the top of her lungs, gulping a mouthful of really salty water and dropping her hold on the stone; with a start she realized that the water was actually deeper than thought. Having lost the buoy that held her above the water, she started sinking fast, pointlessly throwing limbs in all directions in attempt to go back to the surface. The water started getting colder and colder and then there was that strange tugging on her lungs: they were lacking air. She needed air if she wanted to continue living. But, on the other side, wouldn't it be a pity if she continued on living on the upper plate; wouldn't it be nice to see what the ocean felt like? At this special place, it was the best place to explore the depths…

A slimy hand reached out and took her out of the water, crushing her to the almost-bare chest of a woman.

The first few breaths were painful, to say the least, but at least she didn't have to try to move her limbs in any way, to try to swim; they were already exhausted. Plus a pair of slimy, slender, but quite strong arms was holding her against a woman's chest, hopefully not cutting off the path of the air. A little way down she could feel a fish tail flapping in perfect synchrony with the water.

"Breathe, breathe, mortal imprudent. The bed oceanic isn't a place nice to linger in," came a strange voice to her: it was inhuman, yet melodic; coarse and old- and tired-sounding.

Gathering her wits, with great effort, worthy of Atlas weighting the world on his shoulders, Anna opened her eyes and tried focusing on what it was in front of her. Slowly, a slender hand came into view, keeping her left shoulder in check. It was slimy and, unsurprisingly, wet – but that wet that you were when you had been in the sea for the whole day and you skin had turned as crumbled as a grinded paper; or as crumbled as an old granny's. Despite that, it was so soft that it felt uncomfortable, too strange. The skin color held a little too green tint for a human.

On her nameless finger, a tiny ruby ring shined with a spark too bright to have always been suspended into water. There weren't any algae on the whole; the base wasn't rotten even though it was made of wood. In the ruby, a pair of wings and a snake, all made from a tortoise green material (at least it looked like that through the red mass of the precious stone) were encased there. That special combination strung some memories deep inside, but the small melody they produced, died out almost immediately.

"I have a ring beautiful, don't I?" again the same strange voice resounded around her. She looked up to the face of her savior who she was sure, wasn't a human. The face of the woman holding her was with features a little sharper than a normal human. Her eyes were filled with concern, masked behind something else… Why the pretense of a lack of emotions?

Blinking any stray water droplets from her eyes, Anna forced a small smile. Her legs now felt more things, the seaweeds tangled around her, the sea life smiling around her savior had become larger and larger – there were fish as large as her arm floating around the duo. And they could feel the sliminess of the only limb of the woman.

A smile dawned upon her face: the creature before her was a ningyo.

"You're a ningyo, right?" the words slipped her tongue almost mechanically. Realizing what'd said, quickly her hands shot up to cover her mouth, eyes apologetic, but that action caused both of them to lose whatever went for balance in water and both… fell into the water. A.k.a. they got their higher parts of the body wet again.

The ningyo took away a coughing pink-haired girl to more shallow depths, muttering a simple annoyed sentence "For Demeter's sake, I'm a mermaid, not a ningo."

"What's the difference?" finally caught her breath, Anna asked. Foolishly maybe.

"There's a difference big," was her only reply. She returned to the rock with her scribblings and, picking up a strange instrument, she continued doing whatever verb could be used as a description of what she was doing: it was neither sculpturing, neither calligraphing.

The human swam closer to the other creature, trying to grasp the idea of what she was doing.

Using the instrument as a pen, she put it in the stone, as if it was a gum and moved it around to create those strange characters, some looking like others from before. In its wake, the brush left a white trail, making the signs look both natural enough not to be obvious, but unnatural enough to be noticed from a close distance.

"What are you drawing?"

"Haven't your mother told ya the differences significant between drawin' and writing?" a strange accent took over her already strange way of expressing herself in words, but half-way through the phrase it returned to normal, unaccented language.

"O-okay," the human asked slowly "Then what are you writing?"

The mermaid sighed "You won't go away if I don't tell you, huh?" Anna eagerly nodded; another sigh "I was, the way you humans say it, writing my autobiography."

The girl looked at the signs that looked as if they were hugging the stone, wondering what fascinating story they told. But there was no other way to understand but to ask the writer of that brilliant calligraphy. But, as seen that her savior proved to be more the silent type, how was she to proceed?

"Those letters are pretty," she mumbled to herself. The mermaid had already moved to the other side to continue her tale.

"When you talk about me, creature the most beautiful, with the exception of gods, and creations mine don't use names lowly and unbeautiful such as 'pretty'," so the mermaid was vain. That was a plus.

"I didn't mean it that way, but, if you don't like that word, then I'll say that they are beautiful."

A bob of wet hair popped up from the corner; a small smile was sent her way.

"That's more like it. I have a preference big for words such," and with that resumed her work.

Now it was the place where one had to be as much delicate as never before.

"And what does it say? I can't understand anything," feigning a confused look and a pouty face, Anna smirked in the inside. Long stories were nice in the afternoon. Assuming they were long, but they had to be: after all she was a creature originating from the time Greek myths were walking on the Earth.

"Why can't you understand anything? Are you not a girl educated? Otherwise it tells my tale long and sad," another, more eviler smile was sent her way.

Gulping down the not-so-subtle insults, Anna smiled a strange smile and asked sweetly "Can you tell me this 'tale long and sad' of yours? I can bet it's going to be amazing."

The face emerged from the other side, appearing to be sculpting an especially hard letter. Her face didn't have that façade of emotionlessness any more.

"So you are a girl curious, aren't ya? Well, since you said such words beautiful about the works mine, maybe I can tell the story mine. But I have to finish these beauties wordy before I could say even one word historical."

"Okay, then. I'm going to go back to get something for us to drink. Okay?" she turned and stared swimming towards the shore, having some difficulty.

"'Kay. Take bottles with a '12' on them," came a little late reply, but she heard it nonetheless.

Anna ran quickly to the house, they were staying in, found such bottles, grabbed a few and a carton of orange juice and, not even going to check up on Kaname, continued on to the beach again and somehow made it to the scribbled rock. The mermaid was just finishing a strange circle on it: apparently it was the end of a sentence, as she stopped at it, grabbed the bottles and set them gently so they wouldn't be able to fall, on a relatively smooth part of the stone, except one which she opened and drank a little. Taking a seat as comfortable as physically possible in the middle of a warm ocean, she grinned, apparently satisfied with the taste and started:

"I once used to be a mortal foolish and incompetent. I, who would later be worshipped as a being of importance high, as someone, who would hold the very power of the hope for survival human, " she laughed a little at the whole oxymoron and said in between peals of laughter "Yes, I know that you're surprised. After all, who could ever think that someone as beautiful as me would start as lowly and ugly as a mortal?"

"Beauty's in the eye of the beholder," Anna fidgeted and murmured to herself.

"Did you say something?"

"Ah, no, nothing. Continue, please."

"O-okay," she eyed her, suspicious, but then let it go.

"I remember vaguely those years of bliss ignorant. I don't understand how you people all manage to create yourself so many memories in so time little and how you are able to store them, making a blanket warm to use when in pain. Sometimes that ability yours is enviable. Even I, whose head beautiful hurts never ever, even if I try to remember that mess of events half-blurred and meaningless, my being whole hurts from the moments millions little that make up a memories human. The only thing timeless I do remember however is my love of nature."

"Back when I still was a maiden fair, naïve and free, despite every thing little that mortals did not notice, I was a creature beautiful and emphatic. I ran in the woods ancient and big, alone always playing always with animals. Everyone trusted me, even the dryads of the trees shiest, tallest and largest. Even the animals most timid came to me to play, the smallest of rabbits came to lay on my lap, prey played happily and freely with the hunters animal, not afraid of death newcoming. I loved the forest and I couldn't care less if my village whole burnt down."

"I worshipped the gods almighty and Demeter especially: she was the goddess of Nature after all. I was did every ritual needed for her to make nature grow and peacefully flourish. I gave sacrifices to Persephone and Hades so the bride unfortunate could return to her mother sad. I prayed for the beauty mine. I didn't think that gods didn't exist; I didn't think of all distresses, of all people dead, all girls raped, all gold stolen, all sinners; of all blood drying on the battlefields. I just enjoyed my life quiet. I didn't remember the lies thousands I said to the world young in order to create the life I wanted to live; I never forgot to say farewell to my ancestors, waiting for their gifts respective so they could go over Styx."

"The memory of that day is painfully clear in my mind. That day special was when I had a meeting life-changing. I remember that desire sudden to run strong and fast. It made me desire to run in a direction particular, leading to the part oldest of the forest. At first I didn't want to disturb the dryads oldest, but something kept pulling me in that way and in the end, I started dancing my way to the trees most mature. The whispers of dryads annoyed that a trespasser had come in their territory, frightened me, but soon they retreated to their trees homey and didn't even utter a word accusing."

"When I finally came out to my destination, a meadow sunny and small, I saw a woman with a beauty and gentleness surpassing everything I've ever seen. Her being whole left a harmonious feel in the air. The forest twisted and span its powers around her body – that of a mother. All trees young and old wanted to touch her, to caress her with branches longest and most tender. They appeared to be welcoming a queen long lost on a journey to the north."

"It was quite obvious who she was, but when the dryad shiest of all offered a fruit long cared of to her, it became apparent that Demeter herself was standing before me. As you can obviously relate, I was shocked beyond the reaches human of imagination. Think of it, you were surprised when you first saw me. Well, of course, my beauty is to be shocked at, but it'll never be like Demeter's – she shares it with everyone, it becomes the dew that quenches the lands' thirst, the ray first of sunlight that falls on the ground frozen, the leaf first . She's a beauty vibrant."

"And when she turned to me, when I could feel her eyes beautiful boring into mine, my being whole immerged into a mess human, dreadful and soundy. At that moment I could feel my mind going into frenzy half-mad; her beauty inner and outer, her radiance very, took away all my desires pitiful and made me want to kneel. Which I did."

"And then she smiled at me. At that motion simple the forest whole responded with joy never seen before. If I hadn't been gazing at her beauty unearthly, the jealousy squishing my insides would have been bigger. They seemed to love her more than me; it was a foolish a thought, but back then I was a girl naïve. It was the same if a peasant wished to be loved more than a queen. But I just couldn't shoo away the gnawing on my muscles young and heart inexperienced. But watching her I couldn't help but feel ashamed by my actions unprideful. Who was I to feel something like that towards a goddess? But desires humane are strange."

"But instead of the punishment (for I knew she knew of my sin), the goddess true hold up a hand and put it on my head bowed. With a smile tiny, she laughingly said not to be afraid and I calmed down surprisingly. Carefully she took my hand sweaty and said that it all was because I wanted to forever roam. She said that and put the ring you saw before on my pointer finger on my right hand. Then came a pain unbearable and burning and cold yet but I shall spare you the details."

"I'll just say that what I felt goes beyond the reaches human of imagination. It felt as though I was submerged in acid as some kinda experiment meaningless; being turned into a crisp burnt in a fire because I was a witch; I was getting frostbite in the north cold while waiting for the enemy numerous and much more suited for that hell frozen; I felt myself being run over by something metallic, heavy and poisonous; slashed open after going to battle with the enemy far more powerful, clad in armor shiny and cloaks blood red from cries forgotten of the people fallen from the hand theirs. I don't know how long that transformation rotten and painful and blessed lasted. Maybe it lasted centuries and centuries, until the time everyone forgot the gods true, maybe it lasted just some seconds mere, but in my heart it was one eternity endless."

"When I awoke I saw the world with eyes new. I saw the trees same but with clarity new: I felt perfect. I just wanted to find nymphs fellow. The desire for loneliness once blessed was gone, but I didn't care. I knew I was immortal and I knew I possessed the beauty of an immortal. I could deal with the loneliness lacking. I had willpower that much left."

"I found the nymphs other and they accepted me as someone long awaited. Maybe Demeter told them to do that."

"Together we roamed the forests whole, laughing and playing, and dancing, and gathering flowers, weaving them into garlands big and small, colorful and one-colored. Even the god goat-legged that came frequently didn't scare us. We played with him, but he loved listening to our singing with those voices immortal. We weaved for him songs never heard before, so beautiful that Pan, a god in means all, said that he had never heard something like our song together even during his time short in the palaces Olympic."

"But as much as he complimented us as a whole, as much as we loved all the words flowery coming from his mouth, as much as they made us happy, we couldn't go past the fact that his eyes dark lingered the most on the nymph best singing – Syrinx. We did nothing, we could do nothing, we didn't know the fact simple that our nymph fellow had sworn to chastity. We just smiled behind fans leafy and left them to do whatever they wanted. I think even now girls those still don't know the truth horrific."

"When she disappeared, no one did nothing but smile that smile venomous. Only I felt nauseous and so I ran away from the group now crazy, for the first time since I don't remember when, feelin' the desire for bein' alone. Cursing myself for forgetting I walked seeking solace in the sounds natural. They were calming. And in the reeds whisperin' , lamenting for someone lost, did I finally listened to the river crying. Weeps hers were heartfelt and told me the tale true of Pan and Syrinx."

"Horrified by fables hers, knowin' they were real, I ran away, ran, ran as fast as I could, intent on starting anew. Forests new, trees new. Company new, songs new. Friends new, new events."

"In the forest new, there was one nymph bubbly and cheerful, with the name of Echo. Her nature unquiet went well with my nature solitary. She talked a lot, I listened a lot. She listened a few, I talked a few. That was good for us both. We were always together, she always talking, me always listening. Echo was a girl beautiful. Her hair long was softer than the silks of the East, her eyes large were brighter than the smiles that the Pleiades bestowed upon the lands mortal."

"Her beauty didn't fade even after the Hera goddess, mad with jealousy, cursed her to always have the word last, to always end, to never start. After that, she started repeating words every last few I said. I didn't talk back then. So we made walks silent now and, having so much time on my hands, I watched my companion and the emotions that were playin' on her face. In her distress, she was even more beautiful."

"Forget everything for now. For I'm coming to the part most astounding. With its ideas strange and tragedy sad it'll leave you wantin' more and more to. For he's a beauty ethereal of a god encased in a body mortal and human."

"His name's Narcissus. Ahh, even his name still rings in ears mine! Narcissus, Narcissus. I still remember the said that name as if it was yesterday. His eyes glittered like diamonds Egyptian, his body was slender, yet muscular still, his hair fell golden, silken on shoulders perfect. His mouth rosy had opened and he'd answered the question audacious with a 'Narcissus, the most beautiful among all.' It was that smirk arrogant and lovely that made me fall for him."

"It wasn't only me who saw that brilliancy his. Every nymph fell for him. He was everything for us fools back then. Beautiful, unreachable, heroic and terribly in love with himself. Some nymphs hoped he did not pass around the river when it reflected everything like a mirror, others hoped that exactly happened. I was one of the latter. It wasn't because he refused me, when I offered myself, thus crushin' a future whole but because he cracked Echo's. But, being the idiot stupid I was, I didn't do anything. I just let him live that life of his, crushing girls' lives. And while Narcissus admired his face beautiful in the spring cold and clear, while Echo was with him always, while Aphrodite was getting her revenge, while the nymphs other were all heartbroken too, I continued my treks around my world new and little"

"The last time I saw Echo was when we were putting away what was left of Narcissus. In our grief, we were reunited again and I was glad for that. But after that she decayed into what she's now - a simple voice, repeating what she's heard. Her story is still told in the silence of the incoming rain."

"I continued my wanderings, seeing a lot of things – I saw how Hades stole his Persephone bride-to-be, witnessed the Death Great, watched the Wars Trojan as a spectator anonymous, watched people die because of a face they'd never seen. The more and more I watched, the more and more leaves fell, the more I saw the foolishness of humans – how they could allow someone to control them, how they could die, fighting for a cause that wasn't theirs."

"In my travels, I'd almost forgotten the gods so I was quite surprised when my paths forgotten crossed with one. I still don't know his name, but he had those sandals winged and one scepter winged, with a snake circling it. I remember him coming to me, intentions obvious, I remember stepping back in order to escape and muttering a 'no' quick, the expression his of anger at bein' rejected, the way his lips moved when he cursed me to be away from all the things beloved, to be able to explore lands new, filled with water. In other words he willed me to become a mermaid, a creature oceanic, damned to always wander the oceans boring. Always, always, always. I'm so sick of water now."

"The ocean depthless sure has its beauties. It sure has its trees, animals, people nice, the gods high and not so high, the places where a lot of people immortal with foolishness mortal went, where a lot of creatures died, where a lot of creatures had been born and so on. The ocean endless was the same as the land, but it was… bland. The colors varied from blue really to blue really dark. The iridescence you mortals have come to ignore, was shred away from me; ripped away the pieces last of the beauty rare which was not mine. Of course, I could swim out of the depths and gaze at what I can never feel under my feet again. It was just better to live under the expanse boring and blue and watery and lie to myself that everythin' was a lie just."

"And so it went on and on until days a few ago when I decided to face the truth sour, to not run away from the curses eternal and the lies constant. I decided to write down everything I've experienced," her voice was now sour from talking "everything important to me did I wrote it here," she patted the stone "Everything. Absolutely everything."

She stared a little at their now lounge as if seeing nothing, then, in one gentle, graceful flip of her hand, the bottle was sent flying somewhere away in the ocean. The empty ones had the same fate, probably hitting a seagull or two on their way to the oceanic bottom. She stretched her limbs, sore from sitting in the same position for quite some time now and opened the last bottle.

It was almost sun set now. The seagulls were flying poetically in the yellow sky, towards the sun. And where the horizon should've been, there was just one blurred line – everything was whole. It looked like a painting.

"Hey, kiddie little," the strange voice snapped her out of her reverie. "See the ring this?" Anna looked up and saw the mermaid pointing her fingers so that the same ruby ring she'd been staring at while recovering from almost drowning, could be seen. Again she noted the wing and snake symbols trapped in the ruby and this time she remembered Hermes and the caduceus. The realization made her go 'wow'. But then she remembered the question.

"Mhmm?"

"Back then, when herself the goddess Demeter blessed put it on my finger and it became a part significant from the life mine, back then, when I was still a creature woody and earthy, the ring was on my pointer finer. It lacked the wings and the snake: it was just a ring normal, a gift from an immortal. I valued it more than my eyes. When _he_ cursed me, he encased the symbols his in the ruby, corrupting a present from a god fellow. He stuck it on the finger mine nameless and said something that I couldn't understand – something about my heart never belonging to anyone," she then turned to stare longingly at the sky.

Anna was at loss of words. Just now she'd been told an amazing story by a mythical creature just after being saved from drowning by said mythical creature and after the first acceleration of the save and then the excitement, the adrenaline was finally retreating from her veins and she was starting to be able to think more proficiently. How could something like a mermaid exist? Meaning, wasn't creatures like that supposed to just live in the fairytales and legends and myths. Was the whole world a legend a myth, something-

Something slapped her. A hand with a ring on it.

"What was that for?" the girl asked, nursing her shoulder, where the mermaid had hit with her hand and the ring. The skin held an imprint in the form of a circle.

"As the way it goes for humans normally, you're startin' to doubt the existence mine. The adrenaline has calmed down a little," as she saw a nod from the mortal, a laugh escaped her lips "I know this isn't good for your doubts but I gotta go. It's already dusk."

With a smile, which Anna could only deem as uncharacteristic, the mermaid slipped her whole body into the water, then came up with a laugh and a simple 'Thanks for the drink."

Then in one graceful sweep of tail and water, she jumped into the water, splashing water everywhere in the air, then came back in the surface and jumped up in the air the way dolphins sometimes do. She was followed by an almost dark, but somehow rainbow-colored streak of water. In a very poetic way, and she was gone, no trace of her, even the bottles were gone.

Anna just smiled and turned to the lands, which had been desired by that mermaid for a thousand years. She was happy she could still walk on those hills.

Going out on the sand, she just let herself fall on the sand, in the process having a lot of sand get stuck to her wet frame. Looking up to the few stars, she smiled: compared to the tragedy she'd just heard, her life was the closest to perfect. She was having a good touch, she was blessed to have a touch with the unnatural, she had the perfect class (well, after Mikan came).

"'I now see the world in a different way," she whispered to herself. Plus she had her other friends, Tsubasa-senpai, Misaki-senpai… Wait!! Kaname-senpai! He had been with her and now he was probably thinking where she was.

After quickly standing up from her peaceful serenity on the sand and trying to dust away as much sand as possible, Anna dashed off to their housey house where they were staying and where Kaname-senpai was resting from the trip.

The surroundings in the almost night weren't something very different, but she managed to get herself lost for a few times before she finally reached. The house was still a pretty blue-whitish but the afternoon childishness and joy was lacking in favor of the yellow lights of the lamps dancing on the walls. The fact that her roommate had alighted every light in the building, made her go red with embarrassment – he could've done a lot of useful things while she was chatting with her mystical friend.

Or asked a few of his dolls to do it.

She found him sitting on the 'roof' of one of the smaller parts of the house, a few dolls making noise around him. The moonlight set his features ablaze in a very prince-y way, making him look worthy of starring in a fairy tale. And when he turned to her and smiled, that just sent her to the seventh heavens.

"So-o you finally came from the talk with that nice fish-tailed friend of yours," he laughed a little, in a very cute way, at her face. "Yes, I saw her even though I wasn't very sure at first," he pointed the way where actually that rock was situated "At first it was blurry, but then it was that amazingly dolphin-like flip she did that assured me she was no normal person," a spasm of coughs took his voice away for a second but he assured the concerned dolls and Anna with another smile, worthy of a prince "What did she tell you anyway?"

Bracing herself for a long speech, the girl started telling him about that mermaid's story, everything she ever remembered and without the mermaid's strange way of expressing herself, without the little stops to get another swing from the bottle ouzo, without the little hiccups and the lyrical rantings about her beauty and so on. In her opinion, the story sounded bland like that.

He was silent when she finished the story. His eyes just looked strangely in the distance, maybe reflecting about something.

"Makes you think that the life you live is more than nice," he said, still staring at the sky, searching for something.

Anna just smiled: she'd thought the same thing before. Instead of saying something, she settled on laying on her back, so the vast expanse of stars was in her whole sight. A companionable  
silence fell upon the duo, interrupted only by the chattering of the dolls and an occasional cough from Kaname.

*.*

She slowly pulled herself on the specially made for her seat and put her tail in air, mesmerized by the way the scales caught the lights – that proved her beauty imminent for the time millionth.

The alcohol mortals made was really light; you couldn't catch anything from it, but after drinking it, you couldn't swim deeper than strokes a few inside, and that was boring. Plus, her hair was tangled into uncombable mess.

"Hello," that voice belonged to only one person. She turned to him and a tired smile dawned on her features at the sight of his face handsome. "I see you've drunk again."

"We-ell haven't done that, for centuries three," she giggled slightly "And it's nice to once again taste alcohol human-made even though you can't actually feel anything from them," ambrosia was a drink nice too, but the gods didn't allow it to creatures refused other gods fellow.

"Are you okay?" how was he able to read her thoughts perfectly?

"No-o," a whine escaped her lips "There weren't enough bottles."

Silence.

"What is it?" he asked slowly.

"Am- am I beautiful?"

He slowly smiled, came up to her and hugged her trembling body, kissing her.

* * *

**A few useless notes:**

**1) Ouzo '12' is one of the two best ouzos manufactured in Greece. And ouzo's an alcoholic drink, I think something like vodka. Not sure, though. Either way, ouzo's made in Greece.**

**2) Ningyo's a japanese mermaid. :) **

**3) That guy from the last image is a god, taken advice from the Ancient Greek Kazanova. :D **

**4) Creating the character of the mermaid was really hard. Tell me honestly, did she sound like a vain creature who often contradicts itself?**

**If I have forgotten something from the contest's regulations, please inform me.**


End file.
